GENDERING INSURGENCY: A STUDY ON THE WOMEN COMBATANTS OF UNITED LIBERATION FRONT OF ASSAM (ULFA (original) (raw)
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Asian Journal of Social Sciences and Management Studies, 2018
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Conflict, gender, ethnicity and post-conflict reconstruction
Security Dialogue, 2004
This article introduces the concept of ethnicity in relation to gendered security problems in conflict and post-conflict settings. Feminist research has established that men and women experience conflict and post-conflict situations differently owing to issues of identity and power. National and gendered identities and women's disadvantageous location within global and local power structures combine to put women at risk, while simultaneously providing little room for them to voice their security problems. Theories on women as female boundary-makers show how ethnicity appears in part to be created, maintained and socialized through male control of gender identities, and how women's fundamental human rights and dignity are often caught up in male power struggles. In post-conflict settings, gender construction appears to be further complicated by both national agendas of identity formation and reformation , which often include an ethnic focus, and the presence of a competing 'fraternity' as a consequence of the arrival of the international community. Keywords gender • security • ethnicity • conflict • fraternity T HE TERM 'POST-CONFLICT' GENERALLY REFERS TO a period when predominately male combatants have ceased to engage in 'official' war. 1 Because conflict is still perceived through male paradigms by both international and national community leaders-by and large men-the 'formal' period of fighting/conflict is what the international development community focuses on. 2 Once such fighting has stopped, a conflict is Special Issue on Gender and Security 1 This research is concerned with state-sponsored violent conflict (both interstate and intrastate), commonly called war, and generalized post-conflict settings of such wars. There is no implication that conflict, peace (making, keeping, negotiating) and post-conflict reconstruction form a linear, progressive spectrum, or even that there are distinct phases within such developments. However, for the sake of examination, three distinct phases have been separated out from what is, operationally, neither distinct nor necessarily progressive. 2 This research uses the generalized terms 'men' and 'women', but this in no way implies that all or only men/women act in the manners described, just that this generally holds true.
Can women benefit from war? Women’s agency in conflict and post-conflict societies
Journal of Peace Research, 2020
Women’s agency in Peace and Conflict Studies has received increased policy attention since the formulation of UN Security Council Resolution in 2000. Academic attention regarding this question has, as a result, also increased dramatically in the intervening period. Women today, as a consequence, are not just seen as victims of conflict, but also as agents of change. Despite their vulnerabilities in the situations created by conflict, women may be exposed to new knowledge and opportunities, which may have positive impacts on their lives. Therefore, it is important to recognize the lived realities and the multiple stories of postwar societies to address the new needs of people and build a sustainable peace. This article examines the everyday lives of women in post-conflict Nepal to demonstrate the significant transformations that have taken place since the war. It specifically investigates conflict-induced social and structural changes through the lived experiences of women tempo drivers, war widows, women ex-combatants and women politicians. This article is based on the analysis of 200 interviews and six focus group discussions (FGDs) carried out over a period of 12 years in seven districts of Nepal.
Can women benefit from war? Women’s agency in conflict and post-conflict contexts
2020
Women’s agency in Peace and Conflict Studies has received increased policy attention since the formulation of UN Security Council Resolution in 2000. Academic attention regarding this question has, as a result, also increased dramatically in the intervening period. Women today, as a consequence, are not just seen as victims of conflict, but also as agents of change. Despite their vulnerabilities in the situations created by conflict, women may be exposed to new knowledge and opportunities, which may have positive impacts on their lives. Therefore, it is important to recognize the lived realities and the multiple stories of postwar societies to address the new needs of people and build a sustainable peace. This article examines the everyday lives of women in post-conflict Nepal to demonstrate the significant transformations that have taken place since the war. It specifically investigates conflict-induced social and structural changes through the lived experiences of women tempo drivers, war widows, women ex-combatants and women politicians. This article is based on the analysis of 200 interviews and six focus group discussions (FGDs) carried out over a period of 12 years in seven districts of Nepal.
CENTRAL ASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HISTORY, 2022
Ethnic, political, historical, economic, social and gender tensions within countries, and the quest for dominance by state and non-state actors are subsumed in a quantum of deleterious consequences. Despite, rivalry among global superpowers, there is no evidence of a decline in regional disputes or in organised violence by ethnic groups, religious fundamentalists, banditry, secessionist movements or terrorists. These internal conflicts are made more complex and lethal by modern technology and communications, international collaborations and the proliferation of cheap, but destructive weapons in the hands of young people. Contemporary conflict portends aggravated vulnerability of civilians, defined along gender and age strands, where women, girls, children and the aged are the most abused, raped, widowed, discriminated, debased and dehumanised. They are despondent, subjugated, traumatised and denied access to social good, status, education, health and equal rights - the fundamentals of equitable and just society. While data are derivatives of qualitative method, strands of feminist and social action perspectives offered latitude for theoretical analysis. It is alluded in the paper that peace-building in the post-conflict era would be elusive and ephemeral if gender equality is not actualised through social investment, gender intersectionality, masculinity connectivity, criminalisation of gender discrimination and violence.
Women and girl’s experience of war is manifold, as soldiers, as victims of armed conflict, as war booty, and as single heads of households. It is estimated that close to 90 per cent of current war casualties are civilians, the majority of whom are women and children, compared to a century ago when
2017
Peace building in the aftermath of war related violence is a prerequisite for the development of post conflict societies. More often than not, women are assumed to be the only victims in cases of gender based violence and rarely is consideration given to the problems of men who inflict pain on women and the possibility that they are as much the victims of the system as are their women counterparts. Unfortunately, Peace negotiations invariably feature a predominance of males and so women are not adequately represented thereby bringing an imbalance to the outcome of the process. The plight of women as the sole oppressed has been long-sung and perhaps it is time to adopt a more inclusive approach to the subject of gender violence; one that gives equal importance to the men also, as victims of violence. This paper therefore brings to light the trauma of men from the conflict zone and highlights their problems as victims of social pressure and how their displacement by women in the post...